Rennsport Reunion Legends: Vol. 10

Atlanta. At Rennsport Reunion, we celebrate the stories and accomplishments of legendary drivers that gave their all for Porsche. Each week leading up to the event, we will showcase drivers and share their stories. These are the heroes of Rennsport Reunion 7 for the week of September 22: Jacky Ickx, Mark Webber, and Jeff Zwart.

Jacky Ickx

One of the defining figures of motor racing in the 20^th century, Jacky Ickx made an immediate impression wherever he turned a wheel. A motorcycle champion in his teens, Ickx won his first saloon car title in 1965 at the age of 21 and his first 24-hour race the following year, driving a BMW 2000Ti over 2,485 miles around his home track of Spa Francorchamps in Belgium.

Ickx also entered his first grand prix in 1966 and within two years was driving for Ferrari, the ultimate accolade during the period. He won for the first time at Rouen in France, one of eight GP wins in an F1 career that would see him twice finish runner up in the World Championship.

Far greater success came in sports cars. A six-time winner of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, Ickx took his first overall victory in 1969 and his last in 1982, earning him the title “Monsieur Le Mans”. Four of his six wins were with Porsche, the first three driving the 936 and the last in the 956 he shared with lifelong friend and fellow Rennsport Reunion Legend Derek Bell.

Further from home, Ickx also won the 1979 Can-Am Championship in a Chevrolet-powered Lola, took a famous victory on the Paris-Dakar Rally in 1983 for Mercedes-Benz and came second in the same event in 1986 driving Porsche’s radical, rally-prepped 959.

Mark Webber

Mark Webber became a household name during more than a decade in F1, making his debut for Minardi in 2002 before working his way through the field via Jaguar and Williams to title contender Red Bull in 2006. He would win nine grands prix with the Austrian team and finish third in the World Drivers’ Championship on three occasions.

Following his departure from F1 in 2013, Webber became part of the Porsche LMP1 program, developing and subsequently campaigning the 919 Hybrid in three consecutive years of the World Endurance Championship (WEC). In 2015, he and teammates Timo Bernhard and Brendon Hartley won four of eight rounds of a fiercely contested season, taking the drivers’ and team titles for Porsche. At Le Mans that year, the trio was a single lap behind the winning sister car, crowning a period of complete dominance for Porsche in what remains the fastest and most complex period in sports car racing.

Since his retirement from racing, Webber has remained close to Porsche, working around the world as a Brand Ambassador. He was appointed Grand Marshall for Le Mans in 2017 and is a regular pundit for F1’s global television coverage.

Jeff Zwart

Racer, rally driver, filmmaker and photographer, Jeff Zwart famously learned to drive in his father’s Porsche 901, sowing the seeds for a life-long love affair with the marque. Zwart bought his first example while still in college, a 914/6 that he drove all over the country and still owns to this day.

Zwart’s professional career began in 1979 when he began photographing cars for Road & Track magazine. He later moved into filmmaking, directing numerous successful commercials for Porsche during the 1990s.

A keen amateur racer, Zwart started in Formula Ford but soon moved onto rallying, a discipline that would lead him to one of the most formative aspects of his adult life: the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb. Zwart won the Open class at the infamous Colorado hill climb in 1994, the first of eight different class wins over the next 14 years driving both highly modified and virtually stock Porsche 911s.

Zwart is an avid collector of air-cooled Porsche road and race cars, subjects regularly outshone on Instagram by his beloved Bernese Mountain Dogs.